1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a centering apparatus for articles supported on, and conveyed by a conveyor belt, such as ceramic articles and the like, whereby the articles are centered to a predetermined position on the conveyor belt to have a desired orientation to facilitate subsequent handlings of the articles.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to transfer articles from one station to another, it is known to make use of a clamping device including a pair of clamp jaws secured to the free ends of movable arms, respectively, by which articles supported on a feed conveyor belt are clamped and transferred onto a delivery conveyor belt. When, however, the articles to be transferred are conveyed by the feed conveyor belt, with their orientation left unadjusted, the fixed motion of the clamping device results in a tendency in that the article is not accurately positioned with a proper orientation between the clamp jaws, or that the article comes into collision with the clamp jaws. Particularly, when the article to be transferred is a ceramic article with an extremely fine internal structure, such as a thin-walled, ceramic honeycomb structural body, it becomes difficult to avoid damage or breakage of the article arising from the collision with the clamp jaws or inadequately applied clamping force.
It has thus been recognized necessary to effect centering of the articles to be transferred, in advance of the clamping operation, by positioning each article into a proper orientation longitudinally and transversely of the conveyor belt, and this requires a troublesome and time consuming manual operation.
These problems may be eliminated by making use of a clamping device with an advanced or elaborate control function whereby the article to be transferred can be properly clamped by actuating the clamp jaws in accordance with the orientation of each article. However, such a device is costly and disadvantageous in that a longer time is required to complete the clamping operation.